Every beginning has an end. This has been a great journey, but the semester is almost over. I want to dedicate this blog post to the most interesting things I’ve learnt since I started my Digital Marketing course with Professor Joanne Tombrakos at NYU on Spring 2015.

Last year I attended Advertising Week, an annual gathering of marketing and communications leaders that occurs in NYC. My goal? Listen to the experts talk about trends and news happening in the industry and discuss their predictions. Biggest takeover? BIG DATA. I managed to enter to 25 different conferences and listened to another four online and the most common topic, besides content, was “big data”.

Right now big data is a hot topic in the marketing and advertising world. But what does this term actually mean?

Big data can be a little overwhelming, but the truth is that it isn’t enough to making great marketing campaigns or taking important decisions. It needs to work by the side of intuition and common sense. It also needs to be humanized and transformed into valuable insights that can tell us not just the what but also the how to proceed.

The Ugly

Security breaches are a big concern. Today, information means power. Data breaches can threaten a company’s database as well as consumer’s confidential information.

It’s important to pay attention to data, but instinct and imagination should never be exchanged for it. They must work together.

There are plenty of companies taking advantage of data, such as Netflix. They were smart enough to develop an algorithm that drives recommendations according to each customer’s tastes and history. They must be doing something good, since 1/3 of North America’s Internet data consumption is done by people who use Netflix.

Source: DELL

So how can you process all that? Let me leave you with three key ideas…

1. Big Data isn’t a miracle solution for everything. It shouldn’t be a clash of titans between data and creative ideas. It needs to be accompanied by creativity and a well thought marketing process achieved by a great team.

3. The truth is “brands don’t want big data, they want actionable insights“. As marketers we must understand that just because we have the data it doesn’t mean we have everything solved. We must learn how to fully comprehend each piece of data in order to come up with great ideas and stories for each brand that will transform in engagement and added value to not just consumers, but people.

Domestic abuse is a very serious issue in this country (and all over the world). So how can a brand manage to misuse a hashtag related to this topic?

It’s common to see social media fails that can endanger a brand’s reputation. Let’s use Digiorno’s case as an example. They have been leveraging trending topics and hashtags to promote their brand. You would think they should know the most basic rules about social media: never post without knowledge. But they still messed up and used the #WhyIStayed hashtag in their Twitter account to sell frozen pizza. This hashtag was trending when news about NFL star Ray Rice where everywhere. The football player knocked out his fiancé on a casino elevator in Atlantic City on February 2014. Not just the news where in every newspaper, but months later even the security tape showing how he beat her was online.

The #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft hashtags where part of an open conversation on Twitter. Many women shared their stories of domestic violence, something not easy to talk about.

Five Lessons to learn from DiGiorno’s #Fail

1. Be more aware of the world: The world has never been so fast-paced. With a touch on your mobile you can have food delivered to your door. With a click on your computer you can order anything you want. My generation has seen more evolution in communications and technology than any other generation before.

If we have such technological advancements, why is it that there can still happen big mistakes in the social media world? Because we are now lazier than ever. Everything is fast, easy, convenient… But there is no excuse! It doesn’t hurt to read the news on a daily basis. For me it’s a must. If you are not updated on what’s going on in the world, or at least in your country, chances are you will never be a competent person.

2. Every community manager must research hashtags and trending topics before posting anything related to them. Actually, every person that uses social media should do that before posting. If DiGiorno would have done this, they could have avoided their mistake.

3. Take responsibility for your actions: DiGiorno’s community manager deleted the tweet and started apologizing right away both in general and individual tweets. It’s only human to make mistakes, but it takes courage to say you’re sorry. The apologies looked sincere and even though many people got angry, some decided to give the brand a second chance.

4. Marketing and PR must work together: right after the incident, the community manager started apologizing to anyone posting negatively about the mistake. There was no time to wait. But since it was such a delicate matter, the brand later on talked publicly about the situation.

Good PR is necessary to handle crisis, but when a mistake happens on social media, there is no time to wait for a public and formal apology. Within seconds a tweet can be exposed to thousands and actions must be taken.

5. Review before posting: not just spelling check but also the content. It’s easy to overlook. Another set of eyes may be handy.

Social media marketing is essential to connect with your audience. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. There must be great strategy behind it and good knowledge before posting.

I drink mineral water on a daily basis, but when I’m really thirsty and want something different I enjoy a cold Perrier with a lemon slice. It’s simple, refreshing and delicious. But the brand recently introduced a more elaborate way to experience it.

Beautiful aesthetics: as soon as I entered their Tumblr site I felt like entering a world of mystique. I’m a very visual person so I was instantly seduced by its design.

Madame Perrier

Clear target audience: they are targeting Millennials, thus the social media and mobile components of the campaign are very important.

“District Perrier is an exciting new way to engage with millennial audiences and bring Perrier’s personality to life“, said Priya Shenoy, group marketing manager at Perrier. “With mobile usage so high, especially with our younger consumer base, we are looking to increase our focus on mobile this year“.

It’s all about content: the idea is to explore the “district” through the eyes of “Madame Perrier”. The campaign offers a Tumblr content hub where visitors can access content that includes DJ playlists, cocktail recipes, videos, destination guides, and five original audio narrative series with illustrations called “Tales of the District” told by a man that is mesmerized by the District Perrier hostess.

Social Media integration: the platforms in which the campaign is present make sense to target younger consumers. Each platform is used in a wise way. They started their conversation with #DistrictPerrier. They feature a “picture of the week” selected from their followers that is promoting brand engagement.

The overall tone of their social media is refreshing, cool and inviting. District Perrier is promoted on the campaign’s website and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Digital meets real world: the purpose of the campaign is to be a party destination. Its content attempts to recreate popular worldwide nightlife hot spots. It can be enjoyed virtually through Tumblr and other digital platforms, combined with the innovative use of its mobile component to drive in-store engagement.

How their in-store engagement works: Perrier partnered with Ibotta and Blippar as an innovative way to integrate mobile branded content with in-store activation. Ibotta helps consumers to save money with cash backs. It allows Perrier shoppers to get access to savings and redeemable rewards. The Blippar app combines the use of 3D augmented reality to unlock content. It may be used by consumers to interact with exclusive content of the campaign after scanning the Perrier bottle or District Perrier logo.

Even though the campaign is amazing there might be a problem with the choice of principal platform: Tumblr.

The Tumblr community is known for being more artsy-creative and not so much as wild party animals. Millennials that want to fish for a big party or plan events usually spend more time on Facebook than on Tumblr. So maybe this might not be the right way to sail this ship. They are creating and posting the right type of content to this platform. But the problem is that the desired engagement for a big-budget brand like Perrier is not happening, at least not yet.

The social platforms, especially Twitter and Instagram, has been a success so far. But their content hub on Tumblr haven’t yet got user-generated content nor major discussions.

I like the combination of creativity and technological savviness of the campaign, along with the visual component. The correct use of social media platforms is very important and they are doing a great job on this department. But for me, Tumblr might not have been the best place to host their content hub, although it’s only been a couple of months since the campaign launched. It will be a matter of time to see if this ship arrives its destination or gets lost in the open sea.

You go to the grocery store and there are thousands of different brands. You plan your vacation trip and there are tons of hotels waiting for you to choose. People need to face so many options nowadays that it can get overwhelming. But with so many options, how can brands stay relevant, win your attention, and ultimately, your loyalty? And more importantly, how can brands stand out from the crowd with all the noise?

Some might say that the way to go is having information and content everywhere and all the time. But I don’t agree. It has to be well thought. Your content needs to be relevant to your audience. In order to achieve this, the first thing is to know well who your target audience is.

Brand loyalty is not dead. It is true that consumers are now much more savvy and empowered, and they also have plenty of options to choose from. Discounts will always drive a lot of attention, but it’s not all about that. They need to be taken care of.

Outstanding customer service is not an option anymore. A bad online review can really hurt sales, and even worse your brand’s reputation, so you better treat right your customer. In fact, 70% of consumers read online reviews before making purchase decisions. And this is not surprising, because who would you trust more: a company’s Facebook page, or your best friend? Consumers are some sort of community that trust themselves, sometimes more than they trust brands. From their perspective, a brand has a financial interest to sell, therefore they could manipulate the information.

Building a relationship with your consumer is important. But less sometimes means more. Marketers need to understand that it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. We live in a busy world and most of us have hectic lifestyles. No one has time for daily emails from all of their favorite brands. The content they publish on social media needs to add some value to their audience. If not, it’s dead content and instead of driving attention to a specific brand it will do the opposite: consumers will try to avoid it by unfollowing their account or unsubscribing from their email list, and even worse complain about it with family and friends, hurting the word of mouth process.

Some studies suggest that the easier a brand makes the purchase decision journey the better it is for consumers. I like simplicity. But at the same time, it all depends on your product, service or brand. It’s not healthy to bomb consumers with information. It will only get them confused. But no extreme is good. There needs to be a well thought and balanced process.

Winning the Zero Moment of Truth is now more important than ever. The consumer decision journey doesn’t start at an aisle anymore, but on search engines. Combining great SEO strategies with up to date, engaging and relevant content on each social media platform is the way to go.

After Apple revealed the Apple Watch last September, there’s been a lot of opinions around how successful this new gadget will be and if the company will disrupt again, or not, the tech industry.

What nobody knew is that the company has been doing an extensive health research with their employees for the past two years. It was such a confidential information that employees that wanted to be a part of it volunteered for a secret Apple project without the knowledge that it was part of the Apple Watch Health Research.

Inside a warehouse in New York the company developed a fitness lab. From specific workouts to temperature controlled chambers, the research has helped Apple gather valuable pieces of data to improve their new product and offer one of its most desirable features: “HealthKit”. This framework can monitor your heart rate, calories burned, cholesterol, among other data that can even let you know when you should stand up after being seated for many hours.

Volunteers were asked to wear special masks to monitor their breathing and calories burned. They also used concealed Apple Watches while working out, doing yoga, running, rowing, among other fitness activities.